Charlotte's oldest restaurant shut its doors for good yesterday. Green's Lunch on 4th Street uptown first opened nearly a century ago and became iconic for its hot dogs. For more, we turn now to Tony Mecia of the Charlotte Ledger Business Newsletter for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: So why, after all these years is Green's calling it a day, Tony?
Tony Mecia: Marshall, it's been many years. 1926, it first opened. We don't know exactly why they're closing. In an announcement on Sunday, the owners just said, you know, thanks to all of our customers, we've been through some rough times and, you know, we care about you, that sort of thing. We do know that last year, the building that Green's Lunch is in uptown was put up for sale. And we also know that one of the co-owners passed away in February. So it's probably a combination of not having control over their own property, as well as maybe some of the challenges of running the business.
Terry: Well, in the past few years, we've seen other long-running and iconic eateries close in Charlotte — Price's Chicken Coop and Zack's Hamburgers, for example. What's behind this trend?
Mecia: Yeah, I mean, the list goes on and on. You know, we got Mr. K's. More recently Gus' Sir Beef. You know, we do see some of these longstanding restaurants, you know, go away. And it's just sort of the circle of life, really, on restaurants. In some cases, it's development pressures and the value of the land gets so high that people want to build apartments on them, for example. And in some cases, it's really the human element where people say, look, you know, I've been serving fried chicken for decades. I don't want to serve fried chicken anymore, and I don't have anybody who wants to take over. I don't think we can just chalk it up to one thing in particular.
Terry: And there were lines of people around the block waiting for Green's, which I haven't seen in a long time. And that seems to be what we do, right? These places get super popular as soon as they announce their closing. Do we just ignore our local icons until they're gone?
Mecia: I think there is an element of that, too. You know, Charlotte is always sort of focused on what's the newest, hottest thing. And there's a lot of hype, you know, when a lot of these new restaurants open. But, yeah, you do have to worry about some of these older restaurants that maybe when they opened were in really good parts of town that over time development patterns have changed that are maybe not where you would put a restaurant today. Not to get too philosophical you have you know birth and you have death of restaurants. And so I think the torch now passes to Providence Road Sundries in Myers Park as being the oldest continuously operating restaurant. I think it opened in 1933.
Terry: All right. Well, switching over to another iconic Charlotte eatery — that's not closing, though. The CEO of Bojangles, which is based in Charlotte, has reaffirmed the fast food chain's commitment to chicken after he said earlier this month he wanted to get out of the chicken business and into the experience business. What did he mean by that?
Mecia: Well, Marshall, in an interview with a trade publication, Bojangles CEO Jose Armario did not mean that literally that they are getting out of the chicken business. What he meant was they don't want to be known as a place that just serves chicken. They want to be known for their great customer experience — having friendly workers that greet customers, more of a destination rather than just, you know, serving up fried chicken. Now, some local media did seem to interpret his comments as saying, we want to get out of the chicken business. That's not at all what he meant. And I spoke with Bojangles. They confirmed chicken is still going to be a part of Bojangles going forward, and that, you know, this was just sort of much ado about nothing.
Terry: Well, on to some development news now. You report a retirement community in Ballantyne is looking to expand but that some neighbors are concerned about the proposal. How so?
Mecia: Yes, the Brightmore of South Charlotte wants to add 125 units, which are about double its size on Providence Road West. Some of the residents of the nearby neighborhood worry that the development would increase runoff and put stress on a dam that is there in the neighborhood. And so this is a long process that will play out through the rezoning. But it's also worth mentioning that, you know, retirement communities are growing a lot in the Charlotte region. You've seen expansions by Sharon Towers and Southminster. So part of a larger trend.
Terry: Finally, last week on this segment we talked briefly about new Hornets owner Gabe Plotkin. And this week you report Plotkin is actually a character in a new movie. What's it about? And of course, who's playing him?
Mecia: Yeah, there's a movie coming out in September called "Dumb Money," and it's about the GameStop stock squeeze from a couple of years ago, in which a bunch of amateur investors all decided to buy shares of GameStop, which was not expected to be a very good investment. But they drove up the stock price. And, in turn, wound up really hurting the finances of hedge fund managers like Gabe Plotkin, who is leading a new ownership group that's buying the Hornets from Michael Jordan. Plotkin was with Melvin Capital Management. They lost billions of dollars on that. And now he's being played in this movie by comedian Seth Rogen, people might know from "Knocked Up" and "Pineapple Express." (Former) "Saturday Night Live" comedian Pete Davidson is also in the movie. It's described as the ultimate David versus Goliath tale.
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